RAQUEL KASHAM DANIEL IS BUILDING THE DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE FOR VOLUNTEERING IN AFRICA

There are thousands of people who want to volunteer. There are also thousands of organisations that need volunteers.

The problem is that they do not always find each other.

For someone who wants to volunteer, finding a genuine opportunity can mean searching through Instagram pages, WhatsApp groups, websites, community networks and personal contacts. Opportunities can be difficult to discover, difficult to verify and often disappear quickly in the constant flow of information online.

For organisations, the challenge is just as real. Many nonprofits and social-impact organisations need people to support their work but have limited ways to reach volunteers beyond their existing networks.

Nigerian entrepreneur Raquel Kasham Daniel believes technology can make that connection easier.

That belief led to the creation of Voluserve, a digital platform designed to make volunteer opportunities easier to find and help organisations connect with people who are ready to contribute their time and skills.

“People want to volunteer, but finding the right opportunity shouldn’t feel like searching for a needle in a haystack,” says Daniel, Founder of Voluserve. “We are building Voluserve to make it easier for people to find opportunities and easier for organisations to find the people they need.”

Through Voluserve, organisations can publish volunteer opportunities and reach people who are actively looking for ways to get involved.

Volunteers, in turn, can browse available opportunities and find roles that match their interests, skills and availability.

The platform is designed to bring structure to a space that has traditionally been fragmented.

Instead of relying entirely on personal networks or waiting to come across a volunteer call on social media, people have a dedicated digital space where they can actively search for opportunities.

The need for this kind of platform is particularly relevant as more young people look beyond traditional pathways for ways to gain experience, build networks and contribute to causes they care about.

Volunteering can provide opportunities to work on real projects, collaborate with different people, develop practical skills and gain experience in areas that may be difficult to access otherwise.

Voluserve is designed to help make those opportunities more visible.

The platform also gives organisations a way to present their volunteer needs clearly and reach a wider audience of potential volunteers.

Whether an organisation needs support with communications, research, design, technology, fundraising, administration, events or community engagement, Voluserve provides a space to put those opportunities in front of people who are looking to contribute.

For Daniel, the idea came from observing a simple gap in the way people currently discover opportunities to volunteer.

“We’ve made it incredibly easy to find almost everything online,” she says. “You can find a job, book a ride, order food, find a hotel or discover a business within minutes. But if you want to volunteer, you can still spend hours trying to figure out where to start.”

Voluserve is built around changing that experience.

The platform is already attracting volunteers and organisations, creating a growing network of people looking to contribute and organisations looking for support.

For Daniel, the goal is not simply to create another technology platform.

It is to make volunteering more accessible.

She believes that someone should be able to decide they want to volunteer today and have a clear, simple place to begin their search.

“There are people who have the time. There are people who have the skills. There are organisations that need both,” Daniel says. “Voluserve is about making that connection easier.”

As Voluserve continues to grow, the ambition is to build a platform where discovering a volunteer opportunity becomes as straightforward as discovering any other opportunity online.

Because the desire to help is already there.

Sometimes, people simply need to know where to find it.